The question
When did you last change your mind about something important?Originally asked
Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017
The exact question was part of every retrieved Vox 9 Questions installment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I almost pulled out of my first solo tour because of impostor syndrome.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 March 2026 source ↗
The US election showed me that I had trapped myself in wishful thinking.
Oh, most days. I can watch a political programme and think, “That sounds a really good point.” Then someone will argue the opposite and I’ll think, “Yeah, he’s got a point as well.” I am constantly sitting on a fence.
Last week, when I decided to rewrite the children’s book I’ve been working on.
Retirement – I thought it was a bad idea.
When my UK citizenship was approved. It’s taken me eight years and lots and lots of money. I was at home in South Africa when I received the news and my mum said, “I am so happy for you because this is your glitterball.”
Lack of empathy and compassion.
In South Africa I washed cars, I danced in parking lots and shopping malls, and was a children’s entertainer.
When my trousers split on stage in Burn the Floor in Australia. I had always been warned to wear my flesh underwear and I did not that day.
My default will always be to go for the worst-case scenario and that is something that I am unlearning.
Driven, authentic, resilient.
Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Desmond Tutu, Alex Lawther, Diana Athill, David Vélez, Andrew O’Hagan
Search the directory for somebody in particular.